elease". The Government stressed that the length of the applicants' detention had been in direct relation to the general length of the criminal proceedings against them, which had had an objective justification: the complexity of the case, the necessity to perform expert examinations, the lawyer's illness and his inability to take part in the hearings, etc.
56. The applicants maintained their complaints, arguing that the domestic courts' conclusions about their potential to obstruct the course of justice had been groundless. They supported that assertion with reference to the fact that for almost two years, from July 2001 to 9 April 2003, during which the pre-trial investigation and trial proceedings against them had been pending, they had not been in custody. However, they did not attempt to abscond, reoffend or pervert the course of justice.
B. The Court's assessment
1. Admissibility
57. The Court notes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.
2. Merits
(a) General principles
58. Under the Court's case-law, the issue of whether a period of detention is reasonable cannot be assessed in abstracto. Whether it is reasonable for an accused to remain in detention must be assessed in each case according to its special features. Continued detention can be justified only if there are specific indications of a genuine requirement of public interest which, notwithstanding the presumption of innocence, outweighs the rule of respect for individual liberty (see, among other authorities, W. v. Switzerland, 26 January 1993, Series A No. 254-A, and {Kudla} v. Poland [GC], No. 30210/96, § 110, ECHR 2000-XI).
59. The presumption is in favour of release. As the Court has consistently held, the second limb of Article 5 § 3 does not give judicial authorities a choice between either bringing an accused to trial within a reasonable time or granting him provisional release pending trial. Until his conviction, the accused must be presumed innocent, and the purpose of the provision under consideration is essentially to require him to be released provisionally once his continuing detention ceases to be reasonable (see Vlasov v. Russia, No. 78146/01, § 104, 12 June 2008, with further references).
60. The Court further observes that it falls in the first place to the national judicial authorities to ensure that, in a given case, the pre-trial detention of an accused person does not exceed a reasonable length of time. To this end they must examine all the facts arguing for or against the existence of a genuine requirement of public interest justifying, with due regard to the principle of the presumption of innocence, a departure from the rule of respect for individual liberty, and set them out in their decisions dismissing the applications for release. It is essentially on the basis of the reasons given in these decisions and of the true facts mentioned by the applicant in his appeals that the Court is called upon to decide whether or not there has been a violation of Article 5 § 3 of the Convention (see Labita v. Italy [GC], No. 26772/95, § 152, ECHR 2000-IV).
61. The arguments for and against release must not be "general and abstract" (see Smirnova v. Russia, Nos. 46133/99 and 48183/99, § 63, ECHR 2003-IX). Where the law provides for a presumption in respect of factors relevant to the grounds for continued detention, the existence of the specific facts outweighing the rule of respect for individual liberty must be convincingly demonstrated (see Ilijkov v. Bulgaria, No. 33977/96, § 84 in fine, 26 July 2001).
62. The persistence of a reasonable suspicion that the person arrested has committed an of
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